


Yes We Cam!

by ForASecondThereWedWon



Series: Bughead Stories [22]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Banter, Betty finally confronts her webcamming days of yore, Drama, F/M, Jones/Cooper 2018, Romance, To Be Continued, Webcam/Video Chat Sex, before Chic uses it to screw up her life, bughead - Freeform, how will Jughead handle it?, it's time to share her secret with Jughead, or it comes up on the campaign trail, ratings and warnings WILL change for part 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-17 09:45:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14186211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForASecondThereWedWon/pseuds/ForASecondThereWedWon
Summary: Betty's webcamming past and political future collide when Jughead helps her move home following her eviction (by her mother) from the Jones trailer. With Chic gone from the Cooper house in body but maybe not so much in spirit, Betty realizes it's time to come clean to Jughead about her final secret. NOW RATED E.





	1. Chapter 1

I

Like the dust that would’ve had the chance to accumulate had her absence been longer, Betty’s gaze fell over everything she could see of her bedroom from its doorway. It looked the same.

“I bet she snooped through all my stuff while I was gone,” she concluded, stepping into the room.

“At least she didn’t seal it up and lock the door as if you had died,” Jughead offered morbidly, following her in carrying her overstuffed overnight bag.

“You’ve found it,” Betty pretend-complimented, glancing over her shoulder to smile ironically at her boyfriend, “the one level of parenting that exists _below_ my mother’s.”

“At least she let you move back in.”

She laughed.

“Yeah, notice how eager she was to help me pack up my stuff at your dad’s trailer and yet where is she now to help me unpack?”

“In her defense,” Jughead started, plopping Betty’s bag down on her chair, “you brought a ton of stuff.”

“I did not,” Betty argued, somewhere between embarrassed and offended as she watched him unzip her bulging luggage. Jughead hefted something from its depths.

“Oh, do you _always_ travel with the collected works of Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontё?” He waved the volume at her before standing it upright on her desk.

She lacked a good excuse. It wasn’t worth drawing out the look Jughead was currently giving her by saying something like ‘you never know’. Suddenly, she snapped her fingers.

“Poe.”

He straightened up and rotated to give her his full, braced attention.

“What did you say?”

“Poe. It would be a different story if I’d packed the collected works of Poe. You’d never mock him.”

“I hope you’re pronouncing that ‘him’ with a capital ‘H’,” Jughead demanded, running his tongue along the front of his teeth and _tsk_ ing her. “Poe masterminded horror for the intellectual.”

Betty snorted, dropping her purse to the ground in order to cross her arms.

“I don’t know if you can call it masterminding when Mary Shelley did it first. Poe just―”

“Don’t you finish that sentence.” He levelled a warning finger at her.

“Why not?”

“Because there’s nothing you can say that I will want to hear that begins with ‘Poe _just_ ’.”

She opened her mouth and he took a step towards her.

“Don’t you finish it.”

“Or what?”

“Or I leave you here with your dirty laundry and your Brontёs.”

Jughead was already breaking; Betty could see him struggling against a smile like a cracked dam against a river.

“That’s fine with me,” she retorted coolly, using only her eyes to dare him to come closer, “I think I’d prefer to spend a little time with Heathcliff.” Jughead shook his head slowly and Betty went on, just to push him even further. “Or maybe Mr. Roches―” He seemed to tilt towards her and then his lips closed over hers, abbreviating her list of fictional suitors.

A few seconds later, they pulled apart, laughing. Betty rested a hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder.

“That was good,” she complimented with a congratulatory nod. “I think practicing our snappy arguments will really help us in the student council debates.”

“I think I’m getting better at thinking on my feet when you spring the argument on me. Although…” he gave her a _now, now, Betty_ admonishing look, “… Poe was below the belt.”

Betty shrugged and turned back to address her unpacking situation.

“That’s politics.”

“Ruthless.” He let out a laugh behind her. “I knew I picked a good mate.”

“ _Running_ mate,” she distractedly corrected, fishing her toiletries bag out from under her raincoat (at this time of the year, it was better to be prepared for any type of weather). Turning towards her private bathroom with her hairbrush in one hand, a fistful of bobby pins in the other, and a shampoo bottle tucked up under her arm, Betty halted suddenly.

“Oh, god,” Jughead groaned in what sounded like mortification. “I know, I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

“What?” She looked back at him, eyebrows jerking together.

“I…” His eyes darted side to side as he trailed off. “What were _you_ going to say?”

“Walking towards the bathroom just made me think of Chic.” Betty stared hard at the floor, remembering the day Polly’s usurper had strolled so casually from her personal space wearing only a towel. One of many things he’d done to torture her while living in her family’s home. “It’s bizarre how quickly he came and went from our lives.”

“Don’t start feeling nostalgic, Betts.” Jughead’s expression became very closed off. “No offense, but that guy was a nightmare.”

She sighed, relaxing her posture as the memories were sucked back out to sea on her mind’s tide.

“I’m not quite nostalgic. At least not while I still have one awful reminder of him.”

Suddenly restless, she went into the bathroom and began hurriedly putting her things back in their places. Jughead appeared, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe.

“Are you going to leave me hanging? I need a follow-up on that last news item.”

Betty, crouched at the cabinet under the sink, rose slowly, eyes fixed on Jughead’s until his started to look concerned.

“I need to tell you something,” she said softly.

“I hate it when you use those words in that order.”

Her gaze abandoned his and she made herself small to squeeze past him back into her bedroom. There it was on her desk. The laptop. And in the laptop the camera. And on the other side of the camera, the men she’d seen and sat there half-naked for in her stupid, shiny, costume store black wig. All of that combined to make up the messy, dangerous thing that Chic had left behind, like he’d planted a homemade bomb in her bedroom and walked out with his finger on the detonator, smirking that unholy smirk at her that said destroying her life wouldn’t even come close to making the shortlist of awful things he’d done. Betty knew, she just _knew_ , staring at that laptop, that a part of her half-brother was still here with her, just as present and threatening as that night he’d described to her after the fact. The night he’d come into her room while she slept and stood over her bed. Watching. Watching like she’d allowed herself to be watched through the webcam. She shuddered.

“Betty?” Jughead touched her arm, circling around to stand in front of her. “What’s going on?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning on two chapters for this story, but as I got writing this one, I realized Betty and Jughead needed to properly work through some things before it could progress. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one! I'll be aiming to get the final chapter up a week from today.

II

It was tempting to sit on her bed and tuck her feet up under her, or even burrow down beneath the blankets and breathe the close air until sleep came like a white knight to save her, but Betty felt she didn’t deserve to make herself comfortable. Maybe, if she was lucky, Jughead would see that she had been vulnerable to Chic’s influence and suggestions, but there was no guarantee. She was barely ever even able to think about it like that herself since she’d quit webcamming; it was always framed first and foremost as another hideous secret from the person she wanted to be most open with.

So Betty panicked, and Betty paced, and Jughead stood just out of her path with his arms crossed, waiting for an answer.

“When I went looking for Chic,” she began, gesturing sharply forwards with her fingers stiff and straight, “I was trying to help my mom, but after I met him, I thought _he_ was someone who needed my help.”

“His act took you in, I get it.” Jughead shrugged, watching her carefully.

“It did,” she admitted, “but what’s worse is that I thought he could help me in return. I…” she groaned in frustration to remember her naïveté, “…told him things about me that almost no one knows. I let him in too far, too fast because I thought we were so alike and that maybe he could guide me, you know?” Betty glanced desperately at Jughead, but he remained silent. She guessed the crazy tone her voice had taken and the franticness of her gestures weren’t particularly inviting. “Like an older brother should,” she finished, deflating and coming to a standstill.

Jughead didn’t move forward to comfort her, but he didn’t back away either. What made Betty’s heart ache was the way his expression said he was preparing for the worst, bracing himself against her words. Why did she have to create these pitfalls for herself, dragging their relationship down just when they’d started to get things right? Was it really Chic’s fault, or was it her?

“Guide you in what?” Jughead inquired in a low, steady voice. Fear, Betty thought, hit by the emotion behind his question long seconds after she’d heard the words.

“Exploring my darker side. It’s a part of myself that I’ve never been able to understand on my own.” It didn’t feel like weakness to own up to this, not when keeping such a secret from Jughead was so much weaker.

“And Chic was supposed to help you understand yourself? How?” His voice had grown louder, more demanding, like a third, angry person in the room who Betty wanted to ask to leave.

“He never told us much about his life, but the one thing he spent time explaining to me was his hobby. Well, more like his job.” Betty wrapped her arms around her waist, wishing they were Jughead’s.

“Spare me the semantics, Betty,” he instructed, stepping closer. “What was he teaching you to do?”

She couldn’t look at him, staring straight down at the floor instead.

“To be a webcam girl.” There was no response so gradually, Betty lifted her eyes. “You know what that is?”

“He―You did―” Jughead took a shaky breath and turned his back to her.

“I only did it a couple of times,” she rushed out. “I was always afraid my mom was going to come barging in and―”

“What did you do?” He asked so quietly that it made Betty shiver. She longed to lay her head on his shoulder, or at least have him look at her.

“Not much,” she mumbled back. “I just sat at my desk, said a couple of things to move the sessions along…”

“So do they know who you are? Jesus,” he gasped, “you had guys watching you in your bedroom.”

Now Betty reached out and grabbed his arm, gripping tight.

“I sat close to the camera so they couldn’t see much else, and I… I wore sort of a… costume.”

Jughead’s back stiffened.

“Tell me you’re not talking about what I think you’re talking about.”

He turned around to confront her and meeting his eyes was the most challenging thing yet. Betty would sooner have had to stare into the sun and watch her vision turn white, or into a lightless void that made her feel blind and full of loneliness.

“It was the same wig,” she confessed, “the same bra.”

Jughead’s jaw clenched, but it looked like pain, not fury.

“I thought that was just for me.”

“You don’t understand.” She was shaking her head almost uncontrollably.

“Were they your practice for me, for the weekend at the Lodges’ cabin, or was it the other way around? Was real life just a dry run for this webcam persona?”

Betty grabbed for his hand and squeezed hard when he tried to pull it back, forbidding him to let go.

“It was only on the outside, Jug,” she swore. “It wasn’t really me. I wasn’t involved with them, or playing a game with them, or… seducing them.” The word was bitter and thick in her mouth like a lemony paste. He was still looking at her with eyes full of disappointment. “It was a _mistake!_ And it was over before Chic even left this house. The only person it empowered was _him_ , Jughead. I’m never going back to it,” Betty vowed.

“I can’t believe…” Betty held her breath as her boyfriend glanced up at the ceiling, “…that he encouraged you to do that. If he wants to make his money that way, fine, but to help his little sister put herself in such a position is sick.”

“I should have known better,” Betty said, unsure if she was making excuses for Chic or herself.

“No,” Jughead answered sharply, freeing her hand to take her by the shoulders. “I should have been here.” He pulled her in, hugging her securely against him. “I should have protected you from him.”

Betty sighed against his chest.

“I was scared he was going to tell you,” she said into the front of his shirt, “and ruin everything. Again,” she added.

“Chic doesn’t own you,” Jughead promised. “It’s out of his hands now.”

“What I really want is to forget all about it,” Betty said, leaning her head back to look up at his face. “You were right. The roleplaying, the outfit, the ‘Dark Betty’,” she laughed gently, “they should only ever have been for you.”

“Now you’re talkin’.” He kissed her forehead with a noisy _smack_ and twisted his fingers into her ponytail. “I don’t know about forgetting though.”

Betty frowned.

“Why not?”

“Well, what’s really keeping Chic away? Your mother,” he answered for her, “because she specifically asked him to go.”

“He wouldn’t tell her about the webcamming,” Betty said, feeling pretty certain. “It would backfire and make my mom hate him. The one thing he cares about is having her love.”

“Is there any other way for him to leverage this against you?” Jughead’s eyebrows scrunched together and he let her go, allowing him to move around as he ruminated. Even if another minor crisis came out of this, Betty thought, it couldn’t really touch her, not with her guy back on her side. How quickly, thanks to his support, this noxious cloud that had been hanging over her for weeks was now being blown away. She rested a hand on her hip, considering Jughead’s question.

“You don’t think he’d bother trying to wreck our campaign with it, do you?”

“Doesn’t seem quite scary enough for your brother’s tastes,” he replied, eyebrow raised sarcastically. “Besides, it’s not like he has footage of you doing it, and even if he did he couldn’t circulate it, unless he wanted to risk going to jail for distributing child porn.”

“I’m not sure it was quite―”

“Trust me,” Jughead ordered, leveling a finger at her, “I know a good lawyer.”

Betty smiled fleetingly, knowing he meant Archie’s mom.

“Still,” she insisted, “rumours, especially in a competitive political climate, can do a lot of damage. Did you see anyone digging for evidence after Ethel passed out those fliers at Veronica’s rally? People are ready to believe whatever slanderous material they’re handed and by the time you’ve convinced them it’s insubstantial,” Betty gestured spastically with both hands, “it’s too late and you’ve already lost the election.”

“Slow down,” Jughead cautioned, grabbing her hands in his and smiling. “Rumours, true and otherwise, are going to be part of this campaign. We can’t stop them, not if Chic is still lurking somewhere, a few cards short of a full deck and bent on vengeance like some kind of ‘90s _Batman_ villain.”

“Then what?” she asked, shaking her head.

“You tell me,” he shot back, dropping one of Betty’s hands to cup her cheek.

This time, Betty broke away to think, finally sinking onto the end of her bed, hands clasping her knees.

“We get ahead of the rumour, before it even has a chance to form.”

“Let’s just not handle this secret the way we handled the last one,” Jughead requested, coming to sit beside her.

Betty frowned, confused, and shifted to angle herself towards him.

“What do you mean?”

“We tried to move on from the ‘you and Archie kissed’ bombshell by confronting it and that’s how I ended up mouth-to-mouth with Veronica.”

Betty burst out laughing, holding her stomach at the look of flashback-induced horror on her boyfriend’s face. She grabbed his arm, trying to speak, but it took her another half a minute to catch her breath.

“This time Veronica will absolutely _not_ be involved,” she avowed, but Jughead wasn’t paying attention anymore.

“Hang on. This is how we take control of it,” he said, zeroing in on her with rare intensity. Betty raised her eyebrows, waiting for the streak of brilliance. “You use your webcam one last time,” he explained as Betty’s face fell, “but this time it’s really for you, no one else.”

She gave his idea a minute to start making sense. When it didn’t, she told him so.

“I don’t get it. I approached it with that attitude the first time around. It just didn’t work that way for me.”

“No, we wouldn’t actually connect to a stranger, or even to the internet. It would just be a recording for us.”

“For _us_?” she clarified, head tilting as she made sure she’d heard him right.

“And _of_ us,” Jughead added.

“You think we should film ourselves… having sex?” she finished at a whisper, though they had the house to themselves.

“It’s the perfect plan,” he asserted, clearly proud of himself based on the smug smirk he wore. Betty rolled her eyes. “If Chic finds a way to start his rumour, we don’t try to tank it through outright denial, we just say ‘Actually, Betty’s not a cam girl, filming ourselves is something we do for our own personal enjoyment’ and it becomes an awkward invasion of privacy instead of a scandalous tidbit.”

She tucked her chin and observed him, still incredulous.

“You think that’ll work?”

“The webcam rumour will attach a certain kinkiness to your name anyway. If it’s a chosen kinkiness, that could make all the difference.”

Betty wrapped her arms around the back of Jughead’s neck, stroking the hair beneath his hat.

“Say ‘kinkiness’ again,” she requested.

“Kinkin―” Betty cut him off with a kiss. He grinned when she pulled away, the blue-green of his eyes sea-deep up close.

“Woah, save it for the camera, sweetheart.”

Giving him a big smile, Betty decisively patted his thigh.

“I’m going to go take a shower.” She rose from the bed with a triumphant spring.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jughead complained, reaching for her and catching only air. “You showered at the trailer this morning. What about my ingenious plan?”

“I didn’t want to use up all your hot water so I only soaped my body. I need my hair to be clean for posterity,” she chirped with an upward tick of her shoulders, beginning to feel giddy about their scheme.

“So I’m supposed to just lay here and wait?” Jughead flung himself back on his hands, looking sexier to Betty than he probably knew with his hair flopping out from under his beanie and his casually spread legs clad in black denim. Her gaze lingered long enough for her to be sure he’d noticed.

“Yes,” she agreed, lowering her eyelids and giving him a naughty smirk. “I’ll be back for you.”

“I feel like James Bond,” Betty heard him mutter as she stepped into her bathroom. She closed the door and leaned against it, warping her secret smile by biting hard at her bottom lip.


	3. Chapter 3

III

Her bedroom was still her bedroom when Betty opened the bathroom door and let steam foam out around her, standing there in her bathrobe, but it was also her stage. For the first time, that meant more than being the passive backdrop to her hairbrush-microphone concerts. If it was going to be on camera, it had to look good. It had to look as good as… she lost her train of thought, spotting Jughead loitering by the window, book in hand. He turned, unhurriedly looking her up and down, probably as aware as she was that there was nothing under her robe.

“This is good,” he said, twisting the book so she could step forward and see the cover. _Frankenstein_. She snorted. “You’re onto something.”

“Yeah,” Betty agreed, wrapping her arms around her boyfriend’s waist. “Me and tens of millions of others. Only…” she added, plucking the novel from his hands and plopping it onto the window seat, “… I don’t feel like reading right now.”

“No?” He smirked, digging his fingers under the tie of her robe. She eyed him sternly and fished those fingers back out.

“First, we decorate.” He groaned. “Only a little, Jug,” she promised, catching his chin so he would see her reassuring smile.

“Alright, put me to work.”

Clicking her light on, Betty pulled the curtains tightly shut. It was still afternoon and glaring daylight wouldn’t mesh at all with the vision she’d had for this―somewhere between slathering her hair with shampoo and rinsing out conditioner. Once things were as lightproof as they were going to get without her turning it into a way to avoid what was to come, she sent Jughead hunting for candles, which was more about how he reacted to delving elbow-deep into her two-tier candle drawer than the difficulty of the task itself. Betty felt like he was overreacting since the designated storage was, after all, perfectly organized.

“Why do you have so _many?_ ”

Betty shrugged, moving to her desk to get her laptop set up. This placement wouldn’t be good enough. She decided to put candles on one side of the room, laptop on the other. That way, they could do their best at backlighting and orient themselves in profile. Definitely the most flattering angle to do this in. Because they _were_ going to do this. It was insane.

“My mom’s always trusted me more with candles than miniskirts.” She carried her computer to what she deemed to be the ideal position and knelt to connect it to the closest plug. It seemed like a safe bet to assume they wouldn’t be breaking to save a dying battery.

“Weird,” Jughead assessed, placing another candle in a pattern of artful disarray. “I’d rather see your legs than you unintentionally setting something on fire.”

“I’m not sure that’s the compliment you think it is when it’s delivered alongside an implication that I’m an accidental arsonist waiting to happen.”

Finished, she watched as he lit each candle with a long, elegant match from a long, elegant box―also provided by Alice, who Betty knew to prefer things to be both practical _and_ decorative. She clicked her bedroom light back off and Jughead’s golden constellations bloomed in the half-light. He pulled his hat off and smoothed back his hair, dark and gleaming as a raven’s wing.

“One sec,” she told him, dipping into her underwear drawer and scurrying with a furtive smile back to the bathroom.

When she returned a minute later―it would have been faster had her jittery fingers not fumbled over and over with the clasp of her bra―Jughead raised his eyebrows for permission and gave her laptop’s touchpad an amazingly anticlimactic tap to start recording.

They looked at each other.

Jughead went to the bed first, seeming like he might sit, then remaining standing at its foot instead. Betty inched back a little, wary of the webcam’s scope, and dropped her bathrobe. This whole thing was for them, and maybe they’d be watching it together in a house with a functionally-designed kitchen and a wraparound porch 60 years from now when they were grey and soft and their grandchildren were sleeping over upstairs, but she wanted to create one moment for right now. Just one, for him, that was private and personal and the sole property of the Betty and Jughead they were at 16, on no particular afternoon in the early spring. The way his lips sighed apart said it was worth it.

She approached the bed. Maybe her footsteps had never been so quiet, or maybe all of her other senses had simply cut out in favour of her sight, since she was staring so unswervingly into Jughead’s eyes and he was looking so longingly back. Her wet hair, hanging in wavy strands against her back, slapped her skin gently with all the uneven texture her matching, black satiny lingerie lacked. Drying her hair had seemed silly. It turned out the shower was more for calming Betty than sanitizing her. She would never be clean or perfect and the black-swathed boy in front of her didn’t care.

The two of them bumped into each other, a little stupidly, with the clumsiness of children, kissing until Betty could feel him, stiff against her stomach. They paused, tongue-stroked lips still bobbing together. Her bedroom was the tent on their holiday from all other realities, the candles the campfire glow as Jughead tugged his shirt over his head and Betty watched him breathe, eyed his tattoo. She leaned into him as he carefully combed through her hair, touching her in an innocuous area with intimate intent, and found his chest smelled like spearmint. It was where the warmth of Jughead’s body had heated and drawn scent from the pack of gum he housed in the breast pocket of his t-shirt―where a full-Northsider might have kept a slick cellphone, a full-Southsider a carton of cigarettes. She kissed across his chest and shivered when he sighed near her ear, heavy hands pulling her into him. With a little nudge of her hands against his hips, Jughead fell back before her and Betty crawled over him like nightfall.

While she’d been standing, the knowledge of the recording eye hadn’t bothered her any more than being observed by somebody at school would have, but on top of Jughead, on the bed, there was no way to fool herself. He seemed to feel it too, though he persevered by dragging Betty into a kiss, propping himself up to come to her. Settling over him, shocked by the whisp of her own exhale when Jughead snuck his foot under hers to kick her legs wider, Betty realized what was missing. Though they’d given their bodies to the recording, they were afraid to make noise. It troubled her, making her over-conscious and therefore quieter, and prompting her to consider emitting a staged sound just to break the silence. When he moved his mouth away from hers, Betty began working herself up to it in her head, overthinking it and overthinking it until Jughead ran his nose up her neck and she giggled uncontrollably. She threw her arms around his neck and let him roll her under him, clinging to him like Velcro―the hooks to his loops. Stretched out over her, Jughead’s smile (brought on by her laughter) slowly faded, expression adjusting and focusing like... well, like a camera lens. As his smile fell, his hand rose, skimming her hip, waist, and ribs. His gaze lowered and Betty’s heart beat hard to watch that face, knowing he was staring at her with those serious Mediterranean eyes. Inevitably, Jughead’s palm landed on her breast and she felt all the heat of his hand concentrated in the fingertips that touched down on the delicate skin just above the line of the cup.

“Can I?” he asked, index finger curling over the edge and sliding towards the bridge between the cups, which also happened to be the location of the clasp. She felt his cock pulse against her. Fretful, excited, Betty let her hands waltz the dancefloor of his torso for several seconds, heart keeping time, before she could produce an audible, “Yes.”

Just that word had Jughead leaning down to kiss her firmly, the hand not hovering over Betty’s sternum wedging under her to press into her back. The bra left him far less befuddled than it had her, who had over a dozen years under her belt of dressing herself. Not that she minded that he was able to do it so slickly―a little pinch, a twist, and she felt the hold on her breasts relax. Jughead angled up on his elbow and Betty studied his face, in the grips of his every hinted emotion. Hips shifting against hers, he parted the cups of her unfastened bra; to her, beneath him, it was as though he was drawing back curtains in a foreign city’s fancy hotel room, eager for a spectacular view. His lips descended, no hungrier for the hills than the valley that ran between them. Betty’s eyelids swept down, mouth open as she clutched at Jughead’s hair. When she rocked her hips up, he took advantage, creeping her underwear down one side at a time with his only free hand. His breath was hot, exhaled in the sliver of space between his lips and her skin―those lips themselves followed, quivering, up the inside curve of her breast.

Delicate above and impatient below, Jughead’s hand was unzipping his jeans with a hasty yank. Betty, blundering when his tongue lapped across her nipple, fought his pants with her legs and feet. The more she tried to speed them down, the more she impeded Jughead, and then they were laughing, him trussed in a tangle of his lower layers like an amateur Houdini. Laughter’s end was signalled as precisely as a conductor’s cue; theirs was Jughead rising up on his knees to push his clothes away. Betty stared, transfixed as he bared himself. She’d sometimes been shy about it in the past, but now, with the knowledge of the recording shuffling forward in her mind like a selected card in a magic trick, she felt more permitted than ever before. Capturing his nude hips between her bent knees, she experienced a _Jumanji_ -ish pounding from within, flooded with arousal. Jughead’s gaze was no more reticent than hers, and he trailed it with his hands, kneading her breasts. Her fingertips reached for his abdomen, skimming while he throbbed inches away.

As soon as she did wrap her fingers around his rigid length, his hand leapt down to cup her. Betty automatically braced herself, but the only impact was the subtle, almost ticklish running of his finger along the outskirts of her wetness. Though it made her feel a little vulnerable to open up her pose, she folded her arm under her head and began to stroke him with her other hand, sensing a new surge of arousal when he jerked his hips. Their eyes met and her heart yo-yoed. Jughead slid his finger gradually inside her, Betty spreading her fingers over his dick and attempting to continue her motion, yet not entirely sure she was succeeding. His finger curled and her grip tensed and released. She rolled her head to the side, gasping.

“There it is,” he muttered as she felt that first flush go through her, dividing fun from more serious pleasure.

Betty moved her hands to Jughead’s shoulders, greedily pulling him down, and they met in a rough kiss, teeth catching lips while he suddenly, rapidly began to work his finger inside her. Her hips rose, independent, to pursue what he was offering. When his movements grew more energetic in response―one finger becoming two, erection rubbing fervently against her hip―the rest of Betty struggled up as well. Soon, they were tumbling around on the bed, hands all over each other and mouths meeting as frequently as they could make themselves hold still for. The burst of adrenaline left her with her head flopping over the end of the mattress, wet hair swinging, bed shaking, Jughead moulding the flesh of the underside of her thighs as if it were plasticine as he stuffed his tongue into her channel, making her thrash.

She came and sheer excitement made her energy seem to double instead of diminish. Jughead freed her, backhanding his mouth, eyes ravenous, and before Betty could crawl too far up the bed, he grabbed her ankle and tugged, laying her out flat. Immediately, of course, he apologized, but Betty kind of liked that flash of aggression in him. She parted her legs and he covered her; the deep dig of Jughead’s first thrust had her wrapping her arms around him, wanting to get closer, closer. As he pulsed forward again, Betty arched up and stuck out her tongue to taste his skin, his motion seemingly propelled by how she drew him in, licking up his throat. He groaned, holding her and kissing her, the rhythm of his hips passionately irregular. It was obvious when all of Jughead’s concentration transferred to her: he lifted his head, eyes roving her features, hair softly stroking her forehead. He mouthed that he loved her and Betty sighed with a smile, turning her head because of the profound satisfaction he was fanning; behind her shut eyes, the candles glowed like they’d never burn down.

He was breathing hard and her body was beginning to hum, so they switched places. Jughead smirked as he dug his shoulders into the mattress, keen for what Betty knew to be his favourite position. The funny thing was, when she got on top during roleplay, stepping into that dominating ‘Dark Betty’ persona, her actions quickly turned gentle. Today, when there was no pressure to do anything besides ease them both into it, Betty truly let loose. Jughead’s awed expression was all it took and she was riding him, fingers tangled sloppily up in her own damp hair. Her hips swung slowly, like a train pulling out of a station―in fact, her motion nearly _all_ hips, abdominal muscles helping her pitch like a belly dancer. Betty felt she was taking Jughead as thoroughly with her eyes as with her body, running a finger along his jaw as they stared at each other. He caressed her thighs, trapping his hands in the sweaty nooks behind her knees and she bore down, dropping her hips desperately and rubbing herself over him at a low angle that made her toes scrunch. Jughead suddenly grabbed her back and pulled her to him. She could hear his quavering pants as his fingers scraped her scalp, fisting her hair.

“God, oh fuck, Betty.” His lips on her neck.

There was beauty in what he spoke unedited, and in the way she felt his fingers slip into the notch of her spine as her back arched.

“Jughead,” she moaned, orgasming as his hips hauled up against her, releasing, like he didn’t feel her weight in his lap.

They seemed to both collapse somehow, even though he was already horizontal―only Jughead could find a way to further recline when he was already lying down. He nudged Betty onto her side, pushing the hair back from her face. It’d always been a clear fascination of his, her hair. Her hand trapped his against her cheek. Then Betty changed her mind and buried her face against Jughead’s chest, smiling and breathing his skin. He touched her tentatively at first, her shoulder, her upper arm, then wound an arm around her waist, sort of rocking her against him. Once she’d caught her breath―from the exertion, not from the wonder of being with him, since she didn’t think she’d ever be able to do that―Betty wriggled up to look Jughead in the eye.

“Someone has to stop the recording,” she pointed out, forever practical.

“What about the candles?”

“Those too.” Betty kissed his cheek, lingering.

“The fact that a dozen or so open flames weren’t your first priority tells me you need to start collecting something else,” he joked.

She rolled her eyes and snatched the sheet he was mummifying them in, covering herself while she went to close her laptop, which left Jughead naked and indignant on the bed.

“How do you think it was?” She asked, tugging the plug from the wall and turning back to her boyfriend. He wore a smug smile.

“Fantastic.”

Amused, Betty returned to the bed.

“You’re not talking about the video, are you?”

“No, Betty,” Jughead declared, “I am not.” She sat cross-legged and he hugged her knee towards him. In exchange, she offered up a corner of the sheet. He took much more. “It’s going to smell like a candle shop in here when we blow those out,” he noted, pointing.

“It probably already does. We’ve just gotten used to it.”

“Complacent,” he warned.

“Comfortable,” she corrected.

“There’s that positive, political spin.” He kissed her thigh and fell quiet.

“Everything’s ok, right?” Anxiously, she still wondered if he was thinking about the way she’d concealed her past webcamming from him.

“Betty,” Jughead tipped her over, cuddling her close, “look at us. We’re staying gold, Ponyboy.”

She smiled.                                                                                          

“That’s a good reference,” she commended, “but if you’re looking for a definitive coming-of-age novel to quote, _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ was published over a hundred years earl―”

He kissed her into dropping the mock argument, demonstrating another key political skill: persuasion. Of course, it helped that the debaters weren’t actually on opposite sides at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it for my accidental three-parter. I hope you enjoyed it! If you're interested, I'm on Tumblr now (as forasecondtherewedwon), where I've taken to posting sneak peeks of my work. Also, sometimes I'm funny.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be adding just one more chapter to this story, a chapter which will necessitate a rating increase. Hope you're all having a pleasant Easter weekend. I'm off to gnaw at a solid chocolate rabbit. Thanks for reading!


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